Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
August 10, 1959
Print and circulate it among the comrades. There are right opportunists in the Central Committee, that is, those comrades in the Military Club. There are also right opportunists at the provincial level, such as Secretary Chang Kai-fan of the Secretariat of the Anhwei Provincial Party Committee. I suspect that these people are opportunists who have sneaked into the Party. During the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, they maintain the bourgeois stand and try to undermine proletarian dictatorship, split the Communist Party, organize factions within the Party, spread their influence, disintegrate the vanguards of the proletariat, and establish their opportunist party. A clear evidence is the fact that the main components of this clique were originally important members of Kao Kang’s clique of conspirators and renegades. During the period of the bourgeois democratic revolution, they gladly took part in it, and did have some revolutionary spirit. Yet on the method of revolution, they often made mistakes. They had no spiritual preparation for the socialist revolution. When the socialist revolution came, they began to feel uncomfortable. They very early joined the anti-Party clique of Kao Kang, which tried to attain its reactionary goal by means of conspiracy. Now, the remnants of the Kao Kang’s clique, who evaded the dragnet, are again trying to make trouble. They are impatient and anxious for a showdown. It will be beneficial to both the Party and to such people for them to be exposed quickly. So long as they are willing to wash their brains, there is still the possibility to win them over, because they posses the duplicity of being reactionary and revolutionary. At present, they have their anti-socialist program in opposition to the great leap forward and the people’s commune. To save them, it is necessary to completely expose them among the broad cadres so that their market will be made to shrink smaller and smaller. The policy of curing the illness to save the patient mu! st be carried out. The method of putting forward facts and explaining the truth must be employed. They should also be given the chance to make revolution and to work. Criticism should be strict, but treatment may be lenient.
Mao Tse-tung
August 10, (1959).